


What Love Did Then

by carolinecrane



Category: My Bodyguard (1980)
Genre: M/M, Suicide Attempt
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-01-10
Updated: 2011-01-10
Packaged: 2017-10-14 15:39:10
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,433
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/150829
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/carolinecrane/pseuds/carolinecrane
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>In which Clifford helps Ricky explore the concept of touch without even meaning to.</p>
            </blockquote>





	What Love Did Then

The first time it happened he was terrified. Nobody had touched him that way, not even right After. Even in the clinic he’d made sure never to draw attention to himself so no one would try, and once he was home everyone was too scared of him to notice.

His mother knew, of course, but she never brought it up. He could tell she was still thinking about it whenever she looked at him like she wasn’t sure how close he was to falling apart again, but she never asked him if he was okay. She never asked him where he went after school, what he did with his free time or if he ever thought about _him_ anymore. They never talked about any of it, but it was still there in the house all the time, like a ghost that they couldn’t see so much as _feel_ in every room.

He hated it. He hated the constant reminder of what he’d done – what he could never be forgiven for, no matter what Clifford said – so he stayed away as much as possible. It didn’t matter where he went or what he did, as long as he didn’t have to be there in that house with the broken shell that used to be his father and the pale, hollow eyes of his mother. And maybe that was the worst part, worse even than the fact that his best memories of his brother had been stolen from him along with everything else. His brother was gone and maybe someday he’d be able to forget, but his mother was still there, trying to hold everything together so they didn’t fall apart again. She tried so hard, but there was no way she could hold them all together with such small hands.

At first he’d spent a lot of time thinking about her hands; right After, when he was first released from the hospital and he couldn’t disappear for long stretches without sending her into a near panic, he used to focus on her hands so he wouldn’t have to think about the fresh worry lines in her too-old face. She’d been beautiful once; young and blonde and the envy of the neighborhood, but too many years of working too hard had taken care of that. After his brother…well, all that did was hollow her eyes a little more, add a few more worry lines to her face and make Ricky see for the first time that she had tiny hands.

Maybe that was why it had terrified him so much the first time it happened, because Clifford’s hands were just as small as his mother’s. Those small, delicate fingertips had only brushed his wrist for a moment before Ricky pulled his hand away, but it was long enough to make him wish he’d never let Clifford work his way under his skin. The thing was that he wanted Clifford to know; for the first time he’d wanted to confess the whole, awful truth to another person and see that he’d been right all this time when he’d blamed himself. He wanted Clifford to tell him what he’d known all along, that he was a coward and that he didn’t deserve to live.

He’d been telling himself that for so long that he was sure the rest of the world could see it too; why else would everyone at school make up crazy lies about him, and why else would his own mother tiptoe around him like she was afraid he’d kill her next? They all knew – they had to, and the only reason Clifford wasn’t afraid of him was because he hadn’t been around long enough to see the truth that was clear to everyone else.

Then, when he couldn’t take it anymore, he’d told Clifford the truth: what he’d done to his brother, how he’d been too scared to tell the truth, how he’d made letting people down into an art form. He let Clifford down the same way he’d let everyone else down, and then he’d walked away to save Clifford the trouble of doing it himself. Only Clifford had come back for more. Maybe he was crazy, or maybe he was just stupid, but he kept coming back and Ricky finally stopped trying to make him stop. It was easier than he expected, probably because he discovered pretty early on that he actually liked having Clifford around.

~

The second time it happened he was still afraid, but he didn’t pull away this time. He let Clifford take his time running those fingers over the scar, and they didn’t feel quite as fragile this time. His cheeks still burned when Clifford whispered the same question he’d asked the first time: ‘What happened to your wrist?’

Part of him had wanted to answer. It was the last secret, the last thing that could push Clifford away. And even though Clifford seemed years older than him sometimes, he was naïve about a lot of things. In the end he’d just shrugged and pulled his wrist away – gently, gentle enough to let Clifford know that maybe touching was okay – and answered with a gruff ‘it’s nothing’.

Of course Clifford hadn’t believed him, because he was Clifford and he was smarter than that. He’d been able to see inside Ricky since the first time they laid eyes on each other, and even though he didn’t understand everything he saw he understood enough. He understood more without even trying than anyone else in Ricky’s life ever had, and that was more than enough for Ricky. He’d understood enough to nod when Ricky claimed that the twin scars on his wrists were nothing. It was obvious he saw right through the lie, but all he’d said was ‘you can tell me some other time’, as though he had every confidence that Ricky would tell him when he was ready.

When _he_ was ready, not when Clifford was tired of waiting or even when he was too frustrated by the silent treatment to bother hanging around Ricky anymore. That was another thing about Clifford; he got frustrated with Ricky sometimes, but he was willing to wait as long as it took for the important stuff. Maybe it was because after that night in the subway he knew that Ricky trusted him. Or maybe it was because he was scared of finally finding a way to push Ricky away for good. It seemed impossible that Clifford didn’t know that there was no way he could push Ricky away, but even if nobody else saw it, Ricky knew that Clifford didn’t always feel as brave as he acted.

He’d seen it that day when Clifford was fighting Moody; he’d seen the desperation in Clifford’s eyes, pleading silently with him to take over and finish the fight for him. It had been Clifford’s fight, though, they both knew that. So as much as Ricky had wanted to knock Moody out and be done with it, he stood on the sidelines and watched while Clifford proved once and for all that he could take care of himself.

And maybe it had proved that Clifford didn’t need him after all, but in a way that was even better, because it meant that Clifford _wanted_ him. Nobody had wanted him around since before his brother; to his parents he was a constant reminder of what they’d lost, to his doctors he was just another unfortunate statistic, and to everyone at school he was public enemy number one. Clifford was the first person who saw through his reputation and the walls he’d worked so hard to build up, and the craziest part of all was that once Clifford got past all that, he actually liked what he saw.

Until Clifford, Ricky hadn’t thought it was possible for anyone to like who he was. _He_ didn’t even like who he was, so there was no way anyone else could. Clifford had proved him wrong, though, and he’d reminded Ricky of the things his little brother had liked best about him.

It hurt sometimes, being reminded of how much his brother had idolized him. For so long he’d felt like he’d let his brother down, broken every promise he’d ever made to himself to look out for him. Sometimes the way Clifford smiled at him reminded him so much of the way his brother used to look at him that it was hard to breathe, and he’d have to fake a coughing fit or pretend he had something in his eye to keep from losing it completely.

It still hurt sometimes when he thought about his brother, but after awhile Clifford started to help him remember the good things too. It wasn’t so much that Clifford reminded him of his brother; it was more like Clifford reminded him of what he could be. He still had days when he was sure Clifford was wrong to have so much faith in him, but most of the time it just gave him a warm feeling that he couldn’t quite put his finger on. It wasn’t exactly comfortable, but he liked it anyway, and he wanted to hold onto it for as long as he could.

~

The third time it happened was after their first kiss. He hadn’t meant to kiss Clifford; one minute they were laughing about some dumb thing the way they always did, and then something came over him and he just _had_ to do it. There was never any choice; he didn’t think it out beforehand, and he was almost as surprised by the fact that Clifford kissed him back as he was by the initial kiss.

So maybe it was his last, slightly hysterical effort to push Clifford away when he finally answered the question Clifford had asked him twice before. Only this time Clifford’s fingers on his wrist didn’t feel fragile at all; they were warm and solid and strangely familiar, just like his lips when Clifford leaned in to kiss him a second time.

He was still a little dazed from the kiss – okay, kisses – when Clifford brushed warm fingertips along his wrist and whispered just two words: ‘Tell me.’ He didn’t give himself time to think about it, and even now he knew that if he’d stopped to consider it he would have pulled away and told Clifford their whole friendship had been a mistake. But maybe whatever had sent his mother home two hours early on the night he opened his wrists was the same thing that kept him from thinking too hard, because before he knew what he was doing he was telling Clifford everything.

Once he got the first words out he expected Clifford to pull away; he couldn’t have blamed him, not really, because he was finally finding out just how much of a screw-up Ricky really was. After all, he’d killed his brother without even trying, but he couldn’t manage to do something as simple as kill himself. It didn’t seem fair, but even when he said those very words out loud Clifford didn’t pull away.

In fact he just gripped Ricky’s fingers a little harder as Ricky told him about the hospital and the doctors who poked and prodded and talked to each other as though he wasn’t even there. He told Clifford about the nurses; the ones that looked at him with pity and shook their heads every time they came into his room, and the ones that changed his dressings and his I.V. without bothering to look at him at all.

He told Clifford about his father, who couldn’t hold down a job even before his brother died, and didn’t bother to come see the son who’d managed to survive. He told Clifford about how hard his mother worked and about the night they’d sent her home early because there were too many people and not enough work at the plant. Her biggest worry that night had been how she was going to pay the rent when they kept shortening her shifts…until she walked into his room and found him curled in on himself on the floor next to his bed, bleeding to death.

He choked up a little when he told Clifford about his mother leaning over him, tears making her pale eyes bright again. Or maybe it was just his imagination, because he’d lost a lot of blood already and it was hard to focus on anything. He remembered clearly the way she said his name, though, the hysterical sound of her voice when she’d called for an ambulance and the softness against his forehead when she’d brushed her lips against his skin.

He told Clifford all about After, about the dingy white walls of the clinic where they’d sent him to get poked and prodded and talked at by more doctors who spent a lot of time telling him lies they thought would make him feel better. None of them ever knew the truth, because he’d never breathed a word of any of it to anyone until Clifford. Until he met Clifford he still wasn’t sure his life was worth anything to anyone, least of all himself. But even after he told Clifford about the desperate, hollow screams that kept him awake in the clinic at night and the darkness that still crept over him sometimes, he didn’t pull away.

And even if Clifford never did anything else for him in his entire life, that would have been enough. He could see in Clifford’s eyes that he was a little freaked out and maybe later he’d have to pour out the whole story to his grandmother just to try to make some sense of it, but Ricky didn’t even mind if he did. Clifford knew all his secrets now, and he still thought Ricky was worth something. That was more than he ever thought he’d have after his brother died; it was all he’d ever wanted, and until Clifford he hadn’t let himself believe that he deserved it.

Sometimes it was still hard to believe that he deserved the faith Clifford had in him, but any time he started to doubt himself all he had to do was look at his best friend and he saw exactly what Clifford saw. Even if he didn’t always understand it, he knew exactly why Clifford thought he was worth it, and that was enough. And he didn’t mind anymore when Clifford reached over and traced one of his scars with gentle fingertips, because it was just another part of him that Clifford loved.


End file.
